Analysis of developmental potentials of dental pulp in vitro using GFP transgenes.

In recent years there has been increasing progress in identifying stem cells from adult tissues and their potential application for tooth replacement/regeneration. Our previous in vivo studies show that pOBCol3.6GFP and pOBCol2.3GFP transgenic animals provide a unique model to gain insight into progenitor/stem cells in the dental pulp capable of giving rise to odontoblasts.,To characterize the behavior of dental pulp cells derived from pOBCol3.6GFP animals in vitro.,Primary cultures were established from the coronal portions of the pulps isolated first molars from 5-day-old pOBCol3.6GFP heterozygous mice and grown for 21 days. In these cultures proliferation, clonogenic capacity, activation of 3.6-GFP and mineralization were examined.,Our observations show that dental pulp cells derived from 3.6-GFP contain a population of proliferative, clonogenic cells with the ability to mineralize. We also show the stage specific activation/upregulation of 3.6-GFP in primary cultures derived from dental pulp. In these cultures, expression of Col1a1-3.6-GFP occurs prior to the appearance of mineralized nodules and is unregulated in mineralized nodules.,Col1a1-GFP transgenes appear to fulfill many of the requirements of a marker gene for cell lineage studies in intact tooth and primary cultures derived from dental pulp.